Prisoner
by The Essential Word
Summary: Joker is dark and menacing, but beneath it all he has feelings for Alice that are impossible to realize...JokerXAlice Oneshot


Prisoner

Based on the game Joker no kuni no alice.

With a heavy heart, she visited Joker at the circus. Boris warned her to stay away, saying that he didn't trust Joker. But Alice still found herself going to the circus as she always did, making a weak excuse about wanting the season to be colder.

She found him where she always found him; in his tent, cards strewn about the table. By now he knew what time she usually came and prepared for her arrival by having a stack of cards already on the table.

Her relationship with him was strained recently. He frightened her, scared her. There was something dark lurking just under the surface of his smile.

Last time she had been to the circus, he had shown her a prison. He had no longer been his usual self. Instead, he carried a whip and was dressed as a warden. He had whispered so sweetly to her that he was going to have to take her when the time came. "You are but a prisoner."

Today there was little evidence of Joker as the warden. Instead, he smiled casually and gestured to the deck on the table. "It was lonely without you here."

She sat down, not mentioning her fears of the prison or anything relating to it. Today she simply wanted to play cards.

"What game?" she said.

"Blackjack."

They played a few games, Alice managing to scrounge a few wins. But Joker was good at this game and had been playing for much longer than she had, and so he beat her nearly every time.

"You're improving," he said with half a smile.

She looked down at her trembling hands. _I'm so scared… _she thought.

He cocked his head to the side, and she could feel his eyes watching her.

"Why are you—" She stopped, losing the courage to continue.

"Why what?"

Looking up at him, she could tell that he already knew what she was thinking. _He's toying with me. _The revelation made her shake more. She was but a toy to him, so easy to manipulate.

Gathering all her strength and courage, she stood and clenched her fists. "You know what I'm talking about. You haunt me. I can barely sleep…you haunt my dreams…"

For one horrible second, he only watched her, his hard smile never leaving his face. Then the world around her began to morph, to shift. The colorful circus tent became a dark, dusty prison. Where did Joker go?

Interrupting the silence was the sound of soft footsteps slowly approaching her. From behind, Joker lifted her hand into his, his other hand twirling her hair.

"Alice." Softly, smoothly, his whispering voice purred her name. "Oh, Alice, how much you cling to a world you don't belong. You were never meant for it, and yet you try so hard to be a part of something that is not yours."

His grip on her hand tightened slightly, and his other hand grabbed her hair. She whelped as he pulled her closer.

"Alice, Alice, Alice. Did you fall in love, by chance? Is it a man that makes you cling to this world?" She heard cold laughter rise, but it wasn't Joker's voice. It was his ventriloquist doll that he kept at his side. She shivered.

"But how can you love someone when you are literally worlds apart?" He continued. The hand that gripped her hair let go and began to brush her cheek. His cold fingers along her jaw made her feel sick. "You are lost and this is where lost souls go. This is home. Why don't you simply sit nicely in a cell…where you belong."

She pulled himself from him and spun around furiously. "No," she said firmly. "Quit doing this to me! Quit haunting me! I don't belong here. I belong—I belong where I say I belong."

"That's not true."

"Forget your rules. They can be broken. And I refuse to spend my life here."

He watched her, his eyes hard, though his smile was still present. That smile was like a mask, she realized. A cold, frightening mask…

He held his hand out to her. "It's so lonely out there, isn't it? Nobody is quite the way they should be, everybody is strange and unusual. They follow the rules of a world you don't understand." When he came towards her, she stepped back until she felt the cold, hard wall behind her. She breathed in.

He loomed over her. "No matter how hard you try, you are a foreigner." He leaned in front of her, one hand on the wall, the other on her chest.

Shivering, she looked down at his hand.

"I feel your heart, beating. What a lovely rhythm. And it marks you for what you are: a stranger to this place, a lost child out of her world."

She watched him, her eyes wide.

"I really do like your heart," he said. "It's such a lovely thing. Why don't you stay here?" With his hand still on her heart, his face came close to hers, his breath on her lips. "You'll be where you belong…and I'll never have to stop listening to your heart…listen to it forever and ever…" His cold lips touched hers.

She was held against the wall, her mouth closed by his kiss. She wanted to scream, to cry, but all she could do was latch onto his shoulders to keep from falling. The kiss was cold and strange and felt like a mockery of romance.

Still holding her against the wall, he freed her from the kiss. His fingers stroked her neck and arm. "You belong here."

"Why do you do this to me?" she said, tears coming into her eyes. She managed to wriggle herself from his grasp and she slapped him across the face.

As the world began to shift from the prison back to the circus tent, she saw Joker, holding his check, he too shifting back into his usual self.

"You know you'll eventually end up there," he said, his voice cold. "I will have to take you one day."

She walked to the entrance of the tent, but stopped. She turned to him, her hands on her hips. "Then why have you not done it yet?" she said and left him alone.

XXX

I might have gotten plot points totally wrong. I don't speak any Japanese and played the game with AGTH, so I played the whole thing in Engrish. Anyway, this series is my favorite and I really wish Joker weren't the one Bishie you can't get with. I think it's mentioned that Joker is attracted to Alice, so it IS canon…


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